Deal

Peak Candy Crush delayed as Tencent releases King's top grosser in China

A whole new kingdom opens up

Date Type Companies involved Size
August 22nd, 2014 partnership King
Tencent
Not disclosed
Peak Candy Crush delayed as Tencent releases King's top grosser in China

Much of the commentary from the FY14 Q2 financials from King mentioned its 2 percent quarter-on-quarter revenue decline.

Much of the analysis suggests that the company has likely hit 'peak Candy Crush Saga sales - especially given Facebook's dropping power as a gaming platform.

Well, maybe not.

King and Chinese powerhouse Tencent - it's the biggest mobile games company in the world, generating $487 million between April and June 2014 - have announced that a localised version of Candy Crush has just been released in China.

From dollars to yuan

In part, localisation means text translation, but more important is integration with Tencent's QQ and WeChat (called Weixin in China) mobile messaging platforms.

Used by hundreds of millions of Chinese every day, it's no surprise that 88 percent of the games published by Tencent have been #1 on the Chinese App Store.

No doubt, this version of Candy Crush will be another example of this dominance.

"Tencent is focused on bringing the very best games to China, and Candy Crush Saga has certainly proved to be a global phenomenon," commented Tencent SVP Steven Ma, with a measure of understatement. 

"We have no doubt that with this launch, our users will be just as thrilled and entertained as players the world over by the colourful and fun match-3 game."


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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.